Two Minutes To End, Two Minutes To Begin
by Sovoyita
Summary: Ends lead to nothingness, like the closing of a book. But this end, it led to a beginning. BxE All Human, mentions of suicide, no character death
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: I'll meet you at the bottom of the page.

**Summary: **Death holds promises of eternal sleep, an end to suffering. But this end – it lead to a beginning.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing.

"Here in the bathroom with me are razor blades. Here is iodine to drink. Here are sleeping pills to swallow. You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be. Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you reenlist."

–Chuck Palahniuk

_**Bella Swan, La Push Reservation, 11:58 p.m.**_

Drowning. No, that wasn't an accurate description of what I was feeling. The feel of my lungs being crushed, my sides aching, my head spinning painfully, those were side effects of drowning. But that didn't explain why I felt as if my entire being was being sucked into the tiny black hole in my stomach, conforming and twisting painfully until it all cramped into the abysmal cavern.

Weren't black holes supposed to be large and destructive? Then why did it feel like though the hole could suck everything out of me, it was still holding too much? Like a water balloon that still had space but felt too bulbous to hold anymore.

I was walking down the Path of Shame to my watery grave. Then I wouldn't feel anymore pain than I already was feeling. The transition from my current fate to my death would be minimally painful. Peace would then take over me. I could trust that even if I didn't go to Heaven or Hell, then I would feel nothing. Nothingness was better than numbness. Numbness, a conscious feeling of not feeling, was painful. Because I could feel it, prickling my skin like the soft flames of a candle, just waiting for me to allow the fire to engulf me.

The sand molded to my foot, each grain grinding against the other. As I continued walking, the ground became rockier and coarser. The air was too thick for my damaged lungs and every step I took led to more burning. But that was okay. It was the one way I could atone for my sins. I was already running away from an oppressive life; I might as well pay for what I can while I still have the chance. But there were things about my end that confused me, especially when they shouldn't have.

Why was I running to this place, a place that I had only seen from afar and admired for its strange, rustic beauty, to commit a soulless murder? What had drawn me to this stranger's land when I could have easily done the same in my own home, away from the pestering eyes of the creatures of the forest? The only reason I could find was that all those places reminded me too much of the life I once had. But even that didn't wasn't a valid enough reason for me. I would _want _that familiarity, that sense of comfort, right before it happened. But somehow, I had ended up here, on the cliff of the reservation.

**11:59 p.m.**

The wind was whipping my face too hard, like it was pushing me away from the edge of the rocks. Pebbles fell, toppling over the edge before bouncing off other pebbles as they fell down into the water. Unaware of the storm that had just come in, I watched the swirls of foaming water below me, mesmerized by the way it drifted dangerously over the rough waves. It was so beautiful…

Another step closer, another second passing, another ounce of weight added to the black hole. I had been so eager, so ready to end the pain and suffering. But the black hole that had been pushing me was now pulling me back, telling me to wait.

Why was it _doing_ this? My body was telling me to finish the job, screaming that it couldn't take the emotions that my heart and mind was lashing out. And I wanted to listen, but deep down, something was telling me otherwise. Some instinct, primal or new, was telling me that I had to wait. That if I allowed gravity to take my body down into the foams, things would change. Bad, horribly terrifying things. And I was scared to fall for the first time.

The seconds were passing too quickly, making it too difficult for me to see my life flashing before my eyes. Instead, the only thing I saw passing before my eyes were the green leaves of oak trees that had been blown off the trees. There was still too much green in this small little hick town. They even filled their homes and businesses with fake potted plants. How infuriating that I would die right after seeing all this green flashing before my eyes.

For a moment, I looked back at my life. Everything had been okay when I first moved here, if not a bit annoying. Sure, I loathed the cold, rainy climate and the too green landscape, but I learned to cope. Sure, I was annoyed with the too curious people of the town, all of who wanted to know every bit of gossip about me, the new girl. And sure, I was a intrigued _and _annoyed with the idea of the boys of this town pining after me like a child to a shiny object. But all of that was normal stuff, stuff that happened in other small towns like Forks. But then things had to change.

Death seemed to surround me. Had my luck been bottled, a weapon of mass destruction would have nothing on me. Losing a father to a petty, inexperienced, burglar with a handgun at a convenient store was like lighting a match and allowing it to burn my skin. Being told that my mother, my best friend, had died in a car accident with her new husband just fanned the flames. And being left all alone just as I turned eighteen, just old enough to legally be able to take care of myself…that was like putting an aerosol can into the fire, allowing it to expand and prepare to explode. I felt selfish for thinking only of myself in the end, but I couldn't help but think that maybe the Fates had done this on purpose. Did they find humor in making me suffer before pushing me to my end?

Probably.

**11:59:32**

Another step closer to the edge, I readied my mind. My black hole had been holding me back long enough. It had prevented my own murder, the murder I would carry out with my own hands, for too long. Another step, another muscle preparing to leap.

**11:59:39**

The screams were too loud for me. Was it the wind? Maybe, but I couldn't find the will to care.

**11:59:44**

Something wet was on my face. Whatever it was, it was annoying me. It was forcing something up my throat, causing a lump to choke me. Why was it doing that? I wasn't supposed to be annoyed before I died.

**11:59:47**

Staring down, I wondered how far down the fall was. I had seen the local kids cliff diving from here, but never during this stormy weather. I could only hope it wasn't safe. Safety was the last thing on my mind at the moment.

**11:59:51**

The distinct sound of crackling rocks and sand didn't peak my interest. I was still staring down at the rocks. Had one fallen without my notice? No, they were all still in place. I wanted to turn around.

**11:59:53**

Something warm pressed into my hand. It took me a moment to realize it was a hand. A nice, warm, firmly grasping hand. That was strange. I only had a moment before I could fall. I didn't want to pull them with me. I turned to look at the hand.

**11:59:55**

A pale hand held onto mine. My gaze followed up the long fingers to the wrist bone and up the strong looking bicep to the broad shoulder. Up the muscular neck with its Adam's apple to a strong, squared jaw. Up past the square chin, past the full pink lips, past the straight nose, past the high cheekbones, all the way up to the emerald eyes lined with thick black lashes, slightly covered by lengths of strangely penny colored hair.

**11:59:57**

He too was standing on the edge of the cliff, his feet slightly over the edge. His shirt rippled in the wind and his hair tugged. I wanted to tell him to let me go but I saw something familiar in him.

**11:59:58**

His eyes were so different from my own. Their emerald hues mixed with hints of hazel and gold were beautiful compared to my plain, muddy brown colored eyes. But in both sets was something that was very much similar. Both held secrets of our pasts. Old anger, old hates, new sadness, and last but not least, recognition. Somehow, he managed to pull me slightly back without my knowing, just enough to take me away from my place on the edge of my death.

**11:59:59**

His eyes, now wide in what I could only describe as wonder, held me in my place.

"Hello, I'm Edward."

**12:00:00**

And time stopped.

**A/N**: This is the reedited version of Two Minutes to End, Two Minutes to Begin. I lied when I said that I wouldn't add more. Enjoy.

-L


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **I admit that I lied about not adding on. Now, enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Twilight sage or its characters. Stephenie Meyer owns all.

**RECOGNITION**

**EPOV**

I wasn't a predatory creature by nature, but somehow I had managed to get myself into a position that called to a more possessive side of myself. That's why this thing I was doing –whatever you'd call it– was so strange. I'd never watched someone from the corner of my eye for hours upon hours. I'd never watched them go on day by day, looking like a walking corpse as they walked around the grocery store. And I'd never wished for such a person to just turn their head and look at me so that I'd at least be able to see if there was still some essence of life left within their eyes.

The girl I was watching was like a spirit that wasn't supposed to be on this earth any longer. It pained me to think that, seeing as I knew nothing about this girl, maybe she had no purpose on this earth other than to take up valuable space. Nothing personal, really. However, I was angry at her to taking up my time and attention, no matter how unintentional it was. No one else stared at her more than a normal person would look at a bum on the street. I just happened to be that person who was unknowingly obsessed.

With dark, wavy yet sad-looking brown hair falling into her face all the time, I hadn't even known what she had looked like when I first saw her. She always wore long sleeved shirts in bland grays and pastels that did nothing for her sickly pale skin and plain jeans that looked too big for her and if the weather permitted, a hooded raincoat of black vinyl managed to snag its way into her daily attire only to seemingly swallow her whole. No real improvement was made.

She didn't speak as far as I was concerned. She was voiceless and hollow, meaningless. Her very essence was nothing but wisps of smoke and dirt, worthless. At least, that's what I told myself when I followed her, when I tried to convince myself that this needed to stop before I went crazy. I was following her and I didn't even know her name. I was a sick person and I didn't care. As long as I knew that she was still there in all her uselessness, I was fine. I was sick.

Strange, very strange. She did things that made no sense. When she sat, her shoulders hunched together, a strangely submissive movement, as if she found security in making herself as small as possible. Maybe it was helping her. She was so weak looking; a wind could have blown her away.

Human contact was another thing she avoided. Walking down an aisle or through a parking lot, her hands would be hidden in the front pockets of her too-loose jeans, her arms so tightly pressed into her body that it looked painful. People that brushed up against her caused her to flinch. She would trip over invisible objects in order to jump away as soon as possible. Skittish at best, she reminded me of a dog that was about to be beaten by an abusive owner. That was one of the many things that worried me about her, one of the things that kept me so very drawn to her.

I'd happened upon her while at the bank, her long hair blowing in thick tendrils of mahogany strands with the wind. It had been cold that day but she hadn't worn a coat over her frail-looking frame. In fact, she hadn't even seemed cold. As if she hadn't even noticed the oncoming storm, she had ignored everything around her so blatantly that I had left immediately, maybe to offer her a cup of coffee or invite her to get out of the cold. Whatever was wrong, it wasn't my place to intrude, but that didn't mean that I wasn't human. I still didn't feel right about leaving her out in the cold.

When I followed her that day, I thought that maybe she had to have known that I was behind her. But no matter how obvious I made my presence, she didn't turn to me. I had coughed loudly, brushed against her just slightly, tapped her on the shoulder lightly, all actions that had only caused her to jump, all seemingly natural occurrences seeing as she merely ignored the attacks for her attention. At first, I had been angry and annoyed that she didn't just turn around and realize that I was there. Not to be narcissistic but I didn't think I was that easy to ignore. I was human, after all. She should have known I was there. Any idiot would have noticed.

And that's when I labeled her as incompetent. She must have been mentally ill or something and her caretaker had found it safe for her to wander around by herself. What a stupid move that they must have made. She was not safe out there, wandering the streets alone without a care. So I did the logical thing and asked bank clerk, a woman with curly hair and a falsely turned smile –Mrs. Stanley, or so her nametag said.

***

"Excuse me," I had said. Her blue eyes, unexpressive and boring, had turned to me in question. "Would you happen to know the girl that just passed by, the one with the brown hair?" She looked out the window as if to see a shadow of the girl in the window's reflection and then her face lit up, a genuine smile crossing her face. It didn't look right. Malicious glee grew over her face rather than a caring joy when the girl was mentioned.

"You're new in town, right?" I nodded and her glee became more evident in a slightly frightening way. She leaned forward and I stepped back.

"That's the Chief of Police's daughter, Bella, or at least she was," she whispered loudly. "You see, the Chief was killed a couple weeks back. Horrible shooting down at the Thrifty Stop down the highway; Charlie Swan was killed instantly." I had felt grief for her, this Bella girl that I didn't know. I didn't remember my parents and their own demise and for her to lose her father in such a manner was horrible.

Mrs. Stanley had smiled even more at my grieving face. How she could have taken any joy from remembering something as horrible as a shooting that caused the death of her town's Chief of Police was beyond me.

"So, you see, Bella has been on her own. Her mother, some tramp that ran off years ago, well, something happened to her. I have no idea what but just when Bella was about to go off to her, something happened. She left for a couple days then came back. She hasn't told anyone why. According to her information, she's just turned eighteen, so she's all on her own. Lucky her that the Chief had paid off the mortgage on that house of his a couple years ago; she wouldn't have had any place to live if he hadn't. Plus, his will left everything to her if anything ever happened. Billy Black down from La Push had it kept safe for him in case anything ever happened." She had taken a deep breath and glanced from side to side before setting her eyes on me again and leaned forward.

"Some of us are starting to wonder if she just snapped or something. Billy Black has been coming over to her house and stuff to check on her just to make sure she's okay but we don't know what else has happened. You saw her. You can tell there just isn't something right about her. I told Billy, maybe he should think about getting her admitted somewhere but he said she's just grieving." She had sighed and squinted her eyes towards the window, perhaps still looking out for Bella's shadow. "Personally, I don't believe it. Bella was a weird girl before, always reading and never really going out with her friends. I used to think that maybe she just took after Charlie and didn't talk much. But now, I'm thinking that she was a little crooked before and now that the Chief is gone, she's got to be completely off her rocker. I've told my daughter to keep away from her for now or at least until she gets some help." She had looked around once more.

"But what's worse is that Bella there isn't looking too good now is she? It's a good thing I told the others to stay away. That girl is going to snap one day and I'm not going to allow my child near her when it happens."

***

Bella was young, only a year younger than me but so much had happened to her. That's when the obsession had started. My intense desire to find the mystery that claimed the girl's presence was stronger than any desire I'd ever had. Newspapers were searched, records were dug up, family histories were traced, anything I could find and use legally was in my hands as soon as I knew about it. My stay in Forks had been extended and my adoptive parents of ten years, Carlisle and Esme Cullen, were surprised to hear that I wouldn't be returning to Chicago until the end of the summer at best. My siblings were just as surprised, with the exclusion of Alice, the closest person to come to a true psychic in my opinion. She had a surprisingly accurate idea of what I was doing. She just didn't understand the drive behind it or the level of my obsession. I was thankful for that.

The only reason I had even come to Forks was to take pictures of the house Esme had bought and renovated here to give her samples of her old work. This had been my favorite house and she had wanted to make our Chicago home similar in style. But she knew that I didn't particularly like the town itself and the nosy characters that inhabited it. They were all the same, like cookie-cutter copies of stereotypical people that I had seen from nearly all the places that my family had lived. This town was a replica, an unoriginal variation of the same old story. We were fortunate to have found a home in Chicago that was out of the way of the city, just past the city limits. But in order to create the perfect atmosphere, Esme needed the photos. And that quest had led me to this wretched town, to this horrid girl and her perplexingly abnormal behavior.

So as I sat in my car's warm leather seats watching Bella so intensely that my eyes watered, I began to feel things I was not accustomed to.

I didn't know this girl and she definitely didn't know me, but throughout the weeks that I had followed her, I felt as if I was closer to her than any other person could have possibly been. I had seen things that no person could have if they hadn't been observing her with all their attention.

She was incredibly clumsy and yet her falls were graceful. She always gained this annoyed look on her face whenever she tripped and looked almost bored as she fell. I easily pictured her rolling her eyes during her fall as if to say, "Nice to see you too, Floor."

Bella either had an eating disorder or was anemic if her pale skin was anything to go by. She never ate out in public. She always went home and sat her mismatched table and chairs, picked at whatever food she had on hand (rarely had I seen her pick out anything other than a granola bar or Pop Tarts), and ate bits until she looked sick. I knew what to expect when she stopped eating. She would look up from the table, stare out to her left, smile as if recollecting a fond memory, and then look down and frown before tears fell from her face. She wouldn't sob or scream or moan. No, all she did was cry silently at her table, her palms flat against the wood of the tabletop. A truly silent sufferer.

I shouldn't have known all this, of course. My careful spying was always done from afar but, as my obsession grew, I became much more talented at keeping myself hidden and keeping her in my sight. I now had a pair of strong-sensed binoculars with thermal vision. I now had to make payments every month for it but it was worth it.

This also led to me being much more intimately attracted to the girl. She was a unique beauty, plain at first sight but exotic when observed closely. Like a raven on a tropical island, she appeared mysterious and dangerous and strange. And her very nature was of the essence of her being. So as Bella became more reserved, I became more entranced. No matter that I had learned all the secrets that could be learned from observation. She herself was what I wanted to discover, her being was the puzzle that I couldn't solve.

It was the night that I was finally going to confront Bella. She wouldn't know who I was or what I was doing. Maybe she wouldn't even care. But I would help her. I would do anything that I could to see her eyes. The descriptions that I had read and the pictures I had seen of the awkward looking girl had clearly placed her as brown-eyed but I wanted to see them now as they were. Some perverse part of me wanted to discover whether life was hiding in the hidden orifices or if there really was no soul left to light them. My weeks of researching and stalking, of discovering her mother and stepfather's demise through newspaper clippings and television news reports, had led me to this point.

Yet, when I began my way to her house, something stopped me. My foot wouldn't press on the brake of my car and I ended up traveling on and on to La Push reservation, my hands steering without my authority driving them. I was on autopilot and couldn't find myself to care.

I had never been one to explore La Push. It was just a place I never found comforting. The cold air made the fresh sea water and the waves lose their appeal. The tide pools weren't kind with the harsh winds. But I found myself veering off the road and onto uncharted territory, the road crumbling away to dirt. I passed a deserted truck and found that it looked very familiar. Rusty red paint seemed to be flying with the wind and was sticking to my windows as the moist air pushed it. Finally, my foot pressed down harshly on the break and my seatbelt prevented me from being catapulted into the windshield.

I looked up in surprise, my eyes having been strangely unfocused. And what I saw scared me.

Bella was walking fast toward a horizon-like path. I couldn't see the end but I knew she could. I jumped out of the car, barely releasing the protective belt around my waist before running to her, screaming her name.

"Bella! Bella, what are you doing?! Don't go there!" She didn't seem to hear me even as I yelled at the top of my lungs over the wind. Screaming for her by her first name was like instinct. I didn't stop to think that maybe I didn't have the right to say anything to her.

She was at the end of her trail and she was looking down. Why had she stopped? Was she nervous or scared? Was she having second thoughts? No, the Bella I knew didn't have second thoughts. Once she decided what she was doing, she did it. She took her time to come up with a solution before pulling through. That was Bella.

Rocks and sand crunched beneath my feet as I ran to her, my calls never ending. Her hair blew in dark tendrils, just like when I had first seen her. So familiar was this moment only now I had the chance to stop her and I was too slow. But she had stopped. She wasn't moving from the edge, the edge that led to crashing waves and jagged rocks. I could hear the water rushing and slapping the rocks below.

She was looking down when I finally reached her, her bare feet, cut from the sharp pebbles that littered the ground, were along the edge of the cliff. As if following instinct, I took her hand in my own and squeezed lightly, afraid that any wrong move would crush her bones to dust. She continued to look so fragile in my eyes, so very breakable. I stood as she stood, my feet at the edge, hedging over the dangerous line that could mean both our ends if she took her jump now.

Her head turned to my hand and her eyes slowly moved up, hand to arm, arm to shoulder, shoulder to face and finally to my eyes. The mystery was there still, lingering in depths that I couldn't describe if I tried. Darkness, an intelligent darkness encased me, chocolate and hazel brown pulling me towards her as if the waves below had transferred their power to her. I wanted to get closer, to lean down to her and find out whether or not her eyes were real. Such depth was not possible, was it?

When I gazed into her eyes, I remembered things. Pain from losing my parents, anger for not remembered how they died, my newly found sadness from watching Bella suffering by herself for so long, and then a strangely placed emotion. I recognized this girl. She was Bella. She was the girl I had been watching from afar and had never figured out because she was impossible to figure out. I could see that now. But I found that deep down, it didn't matter that I couldn't figure her out. I wanted to try and if I failed, it wouldn't matter. As long as I knew her, I would be okay. I would be content.

Wonder overcoming me, I gazed deeply into the depths of her irises and somehow managed to gain my voice.

"Hello, I'm Edward."

And time stopped.

**A/N: **I really, really liked this. I'm surprised it came out so…weird… I love it.

For anyone looking for a story to read, I recommend **Existentialism **by **MonSangEstMonEncre. **I beta-ed that one. It truly is one of those stories that I can't wait to read more of. Seriously, read it.


End file.
